


Weep Not For What You Have Lost

by ezazahaz



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, M/M, Superfamily, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-28
Updated: 2014-07-28
Packaged: 2018-02-10 18:15:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2035092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ezazahaz/pseuds/ezazahaz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>More than anything in the world right now, he wanted everything to be back the way it was.  It was strange, and perhaps a little hypocritical--when he'd first met Steve, he'd actually thought the man was weak, unable to cope with living in another time.  Tony, as a futurist, had been sure he'd be able to handle a 70-year jump and land on his feet, diving into whatever new technologies existed, thriving on being able to do so much more with computers and electronics and whatever amazing new power sources had been developed since his own time.</em> </p><p>  <em>But that was before, before he had a family (although he did have Pepper and Happy and Rhodey back then, and how was it he'd never considered them when he contemplated the hypothetical of being alone in the distant future?), and losing a mere eleven years... hurt.  Steve had lost everyone he'd ever known; all Tony had lost was a few years of his loved ones' lives.</em></p><p>  <em>And it hurt.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Weep Not For What You Have Lost

"Tony."

"Tony."

"Tony."

So focused was Tony on the blueprints hovering in front of him, he didn't notice his husband's presence in the workshop until arms snaked around from behind him. He yelped in surprise, but then leaned back into Steve's embrace.

"Pete in bed already?"

Between his shoulder and head, Tony could feel Steve shake his head. "He's brushing his teeth right now. And he asked if you could read him that book about bugs again."

"Arachnids. And he should have that thing practically memorized by now. I think I do."

Steve gave him a squeeze, then pulled away. "You going to come up?"

"Yeah, tell him I'll be there soon. I just need to make a quick note here..."

"Tony..." Steve sounded skeptical.

"No, I swear, I'll be like, two minutes."

"Two minutes."

"Maybe three."

"JARVIS," Steve said, "Set a timer. If Tony's not headed upstairs in two and a half minutes, shut everything down for the night."

Tony looked at Steve, eyebrows raised.

"Sir?" JARVIS waited for confirmation. Although JARVIS responded to the other Avengers' orders as well as Tony's, Tony's instructions always superseded the others'.

Tony sighed. "Yes, fine, whatever. I'll be up soon."

Steve smiled, then left the workshop.

Tony's fingers moved rapidly, typing a quick note to himself that would hopefully remind him what his plans were when he came back to these plans tomorrow. Too many times, he'd come up with a brilliant plan for one of his projects, only to come back later and have no idea what his notes to himself meant. It was part of why he never wanted to stop to go to bed, though having Steve and now Peter (and sometimes, before that, Pepper) made him keep a more normal sleep schedule.

"Sir?"

"No way, that cannot have been two minutes."

"No, Sir. I am detecting an unknown energy surge--"

Suddenly, Tony felt overcome by dizziness and nausea. He closed his eyes and put his hand to his head. After a few seconds, it passed, but something felt--off.

He opened his eyes, and--the workshop looked different. Tables were rearranged, the plans he'd been working on were gone, as were various other bits and pieces. There was even some new equipment, and Tony was alarmed to realize he couldn't tell what the electronics were meant to do.

But most alarming was the fact that he was no longer alone. Steve was there--dressed in clothes Tony had never seen him wear--as was a dark-haired young man Tony had never seen before. Both were looking at him in shock.

"Okay, who the hell are you and what are you doing in my workshop?" Tony demanded.

Steve's face was white, and he took a stumbling step forward, arm half raised as though he wanted to touch Tony but was afraid to. "Oh, God, Tony."

Tony looked at him in concern, but felt his eyes snap back to the stranger behind his husband. The young man--probably in his late teens--looked like he was about to cry. And Tony realized that maybe he did look a little familiar, just as the guy spoke. "...Dad?"

Tony blinked. Then he blinked again, and again, like the next time he opened his eyes things might be back to how they were, and not this, because no. No no no. "...Pete?"

In that moment Steve launched himself at Tony, wrapped around him much more tightly than the earlier embrace, and began desperately kissing his neck, his chin, his lips, before pulling him back into a nearly crushing bear hug. "Tony," he said again, his voice breaking.

"Um," Tony said, returning the embrace, if not so desperately. "Uh, hi. Um, I'm getting the feeling I'm not in 2014 anymore, am I?"

He felt Steve either laugh or sob, then pull back, slightly. He kept one arm around Tony's shoulder, and the other hand came up to brush his face. Now that Tony was looking at Steve more closely, he noticed Steve had changed more than just his clothes. While he didn't appear to have aged significantly (and they'd always suspected the Super Soldier Serum might have slowed down his aging process), there were a few wrinkles around his eyes that hadn't been there before. There were no scars, of course, but he looked a little... worn. Like he'd been through a lot, even if it didn't physically age him much.

"The current date is June 17, 2025," stated a voice from the ceiling, and Tony felt first relief at hearing JARVIS' familiar tones, then panic at the date itself. "And might I say, Sir, it is good to have you back with us."

Tony frowned at that phrasing, while the young man who was apparently his grown-up son asked carefully, "So he is definitely Tony Stark, then, JARVIS? Not, like, a clone, or a Skrull, or life model decoy, or..." Steve threw Peter a look.

"Indeed, Master Peter. My biometric scans show him to be an exact match to Anthony Edward Stark, though there is a residue of the energy readings detected earlier. However, I am not certain I could detect a difference from an Anthony Edward Stark from a parallel universe."

"I... take it I won't be getting to meet future me," Tony commented, more lightly than he felt. "I'm dead, aren't I?"

Steve's arms tightened around him again. "No. No, you're alive, and you're here, now." He lowered his forehead to touch Tony's.

"No, I mean... wait," Tony realized, "You mean you haven't seen me since--"

"Since May 22, 2014," Peter supplied. "You just... disappeared. JARVIS said he'd detected an unknown energy signature, and then you were gone, and we never knew why."

That wasn't what he wanted to hear. Did that mean he didn't find a way back to his own time? If Steve and Peter hadn't seen him again--but Tony could still change that, couldn't he? He'd find some way back.

Some way not to have missed his son's entire childhood.

What else had he missed?

If he was going to make it back to 2014, it might not be a good idea to get too much information about the future, but he couldn't stand *not* knowing.

"Pepper. Rhodey, Happy, are they...?"

Steve seemed to realize what he was asking, and gave him a reassuring smile. "Pepper's still running Stark Industries--she refused to change the name. Happy's her chief of security and her husband. Jim Rhodes is a general now."

"No surprise there. And the team?"

"Natasha and Clint are full-time Avengers now--they don't work for SHIELD anymore. Still live here in the tower. Bruce spends less time with the team now, though, since he and Betty got back together and... well, they have a baby girl."

Tony smiled, a little bittersweet. He was glad Bruce had overcome his fears of the Other Guy enough to make a go at the family he'd always wanted--Tony could always see the longing in Bruce's eyes when he looked at them with Peter--but Tony also regretted missing the development of that family.

"And Thor spends more time on Asgard than here," Steve continued, "Since we've added a few new members to the team roster." He glanced at Peter for a fraction of a second, but Tony noticed the look that passed between them.

"What was that? No. Tell me you are not letting our teenage son fight crime. No." He glared at Steve, then looked to Peter like he suddenly expected to see battle scars covering his son's body. Even if he'd grown several feet taller since Tony had last seen him, what felt like mere hours before, he was still a kid--still Tony's little boy--and definitely not old enough to be facing the kinds of enemies the Avengers faced.

Peter just grinned proudly at Tony's scowl. "Yep! I've got superpowers, Dad!"

"If there was super soldier serum or Hulk blood involved, so help me, I'm gonna kill Bruce..."

"Nope, a radioactive spider."

"Spider. Wha--"

Before Tony could ask, Peter was climbing the wall--literally--and then hanging from the ceiling, looking down at Tony and grinning like a lunatic.

Tony just stared.

Peter's grin started to fade, and he dropped to the floor, flipping gracefully to land on his feet. "I thought--I'd always hoped you'd be proud."

Tony looked helplessly at Steve, who finally pulled away from Tony to pat their son on the arm. "I think your dad's just a little overwhelmed right now, Pete. Take it from me, waking up in the wrong time is something that takes a lot of adjustment, but he'll get there. For now, how about you go fill the others in on what's going on. And see if you can get Dr. McCoy or Richards to come by and check Tony out, make sure he's okay."

"I'm fine," Tony protested, almost by rote.

"JARVIS said something about strange energy readings, I want to make sure they're nothing to worry about," Steve insisted.

Further investigation of the energy readings might also help Tony find a way to get back, so he didn't argue any more. He just watched Pete leave, the kid looking back uncertainly once more before heading out.

He felt a little guilty for the fact that he felt a bit more balanced once his son left the room.

More than anything in the world right now, he wanted everything to be back the way it was. It was strange, and perhaps a little hypocritical--when he'd first met Steve, he'd actually thought the man was weak, unable to cope with living in another time. Tony, as a futurist, had been sure he'd be able to handle a 70-year jump and land on his feet, diving into whatever new technologies existed, thriving on being able to do so much more with computers and electronics and whatever amazing new power sources had been developed since his own time.

But that was before, before he had a family (although he did have Pepper and Happy and Rhodey back then, and how was it he'd never considered them when he contemplated the hypothetical of being alone in the distant future?), and losing a mere eleven years... hurt. Steve had lost everyone he'd ever known; all Tony had lost was a few years of his loved ones' lives.

And it hurt.

His young son was now almost a man, and practically a stranger. Some of his closest friends had married, had kids. At least it sounded like no one, at least no one he was particularly close to, had died in that lost time. And Steve...

"You didn't move on," Tony said quietly. "Find... somebody else?"

Steve shook his head. "There was... I did try, once, just a couple years ago. A SHIELD Agent, Sharon. But it never went anywhere. I think I was still just waiting for you."

Tony gave him a shaky smile. "You always were a hopeless romantic."

As if that was his cue, Steve stepped forward again, cupping his face and kissing him reverently. When he pulled back to speak, he kept his forehead touching Tony's, his hands on Tony's shoulders. "But you did come back. You're here with us again."

"Steve..." Tony sighed. "I can't stay."

Steve froze, his hands suddenly gripping Tony's shoulders almost painfully. "What?"

"I have to get back. I'll look at JARVIS' analysis of the energy readings--sounds like he detected them both when I disappeared and when I reappeared?--see if I can figure out what happened, find a way to reverse it..."

"Tony."

"...there's gotta be a way I can--shit, that's your 'I'm gonna forbid you from doing something' voice, I don't like that voice, it usually leads to a fight, and while the make-up sex is amazing, I don't like the parts in between..."

"Tony," Steve interrupted firmly. "You can't go back."

"Oh, I can. I mean, I don't know how to yet, but seriously, have I been gone so long that you've forgotten what a genius I am?"

"Time travel to the past doesn't work, Tony. You think I didn't go through this when I woke up in 2011? Everything seemed so futuristic, I was sure someone would have the technology to send me back, but it just doesn't work that way."

"Doesn't work that way _yet_. Again, feeling a little unappreciated here."

" _Unappreciated?_ " Steve hissed, and whoa. They were apparently now entering the volatile stages of the argument. Steve's fingers dug into Tony's shoulders bruisingly for an instant, then Steve yanked himself away from Tony and started pacing. "We just got you back, and all you can think about is leaving again, you can't even look your own son in the eye, I don't think you're one to talk about being _unappreciated_ here."

"But I'm trying to get back _to_ you! So you guys _don't_ have to have lived those years without me!"

"But it wouldn't work like that for us, would it? What will happen to Pete and me when--if you did manage to go back?"

Tony froze, a retort dying on his lips as he realized what Steve was saying, even as Steve continued.

"Do we just magically have memories of you having been in our lives all those years? Or do we just go on like this, having lost you twice over, while alternate versions of us live on with you in the past? Or maybe we just cease to exist, all of our experiences, memories, lives, gone forever. You don't even know, do you?"

"It wouldn't... be..." Tony said weakly, realizing with horror that Steve was right. Science fiction stories aside, being the first to develop backward time travel would mean he had no way to know how it might affect the timeline, the multiverse. There were theories, of course, but no one knew for sure. Still, he wasn't ready to give in, wasn't ready to give up hope that he could make his way back home. "But... our lives. We could be together, you wouldn't have to have lost me, don't you wish I'd never disappeared in the first place?"

"Of course I wished that! But... you did, and we've lived on. For better or worse, we've lived, Tony." Steve sighed, falling more than sitting at a work bench, resting his elbows on the lab table and his head in his hands. "When I first woke up in 2011, I spent so much time wishing I'd never been frozen in the ice. But if I hadn't, I'd never have met you, never fallen in love with you, never met Peter and brought him into our life, our family. I'd never have found a family in the Avengers. These things... they made it worth the pain of losing all those years, losing everyone and everything..."

"Are you saying," Tony asked, suddenly unable to look at Steve, even though Steve wasn't looking at him, either. "Are you saying that things have happened in the past eleven years that... made it worth losing me?"

Steve made a sound that wasn't quite a sob. "No. But... we've lived. Things have happened, good things. Things that might have happened differently, or not at all, if you'd never disappeared. What if us never losing you meant Bruce never having his little girl?" Before Tony could respond, Steve said, "JARVIS, show him Rebecca Banner."

Suddenly, in the air in front of Tony appeared a full-color hologram of a tiny, laughing child, with wispy black curls and a little stuffed Hulk doll. Even Tony couldn't deny that she was adorable.

"What if you go back and she never exists?"

"Low blow, there, Steve," Tony muttered darkly, then added, "But what about Peter? If I were there, there would be no way I'd have let him go out and risk his life fighting villains before he even got through high school."

Steve met his eyes again and started counting off fingers. "One, he's in college now. Two, I fought him on the idea, too, until he proved that he'd do it with or without permission--he's as driven to protect people as we are--and by having him part of the Avengers meant I had more control over the circumstances. Three, he's saved a lot of lives. If you go back, what happens to those whose lives he's saved?"

"Get me a list, I'll save them instead," Tony replied snidely. "Besides, how can I care about the lives of a few civilians when compared to the life of my own son?"

"It's been so long, I'd forgotten how much of an asshole you can be," Steve commented, but his voice sounded more fond than aggressive, and Tony smirked. Steve continued, "But he's saved more than 'a few civilians.' He's saved Natasha's life, and mine. Saved mine more than once."

Tony was startled into silence.

"Now, maybe if you were there, you would have saved me. And maybe you wouldn't. Maybe if you'd never disappeared, one of us would have died in battle years ago, and instead of wondering why you disappeared, Peter would be mourning the death of a parent, knowing he'd never get him back."

Tony tried not to picture it. He didn't succeed. "You don't know that would happen."

"And you don't know it wouldn't. That's my point. You have no idea if your returning to 2014 would mean a better life for everyone. You don't know what would happen to us when you leave us behind. You _don't know_.

"But I know," Steve said, getting up and moving to stand in front of Tony again, "That you're here now. And I missed you, and I'm so grateful to have you back, and all I want is for you to stay here, with me, with us, and never leave us again. Please." Steve's calm broke on the last word, and there were tears in his eyes.

Tony couldn't reply, there was a sudden lump in his throat that made speech impossible, so he nodded.

Steve visibly sagged with relief, before he gripped Tony in a crushing hug yet again. Then their mouths found each other, and began a dance of desperation and passion, longing and relief and love and so many other emotions pouring into each other.

"Sir--" JARVIS interrupted, and they pulled ever so slightly apart, just in time to hear pounding footsteps and the door to the workshop fly open.

" _Tony!_ "

Tony laughed, looking up at the door where Clint stood, clearly older but just as clearly amazed to see Tony, excitement lighting up his face. Natasha and Bruce appeared moments later, and they all jostled each other, forcing their way into the workshop and toward Tony.

"Hey, guys, what's up?" he asked cheekily, before being engulfed in hugs, welcomes, and questions. When he noticed Peter hovering uncertainly by the door, Tony beckoned him forward, giving him a bear hug of his own and ruffling his hair.

He could do this, Tony thought. It would hurt, learning about everything he had missed, wishing he'd gotten to experience more of his family's and friends' lives, but he could do it. He had the people he loved. In the end, that was all that mattered.

**Author's Note:**

> If I were better at writing (and finishing) long plotty fics, this would be a longer story. We'd see Tony taking more time to accept his new place in the future, coping with everything that's changed in his family's and friends' lives, being both frustrated and excited by new technologies, meeting new team members, maybe even finding out what exactly caused his time jump. But this has been sitting on my hard drive mostly written for over a year, and I just wanted to post it, so I hope it's enjoyable as it is.
> 
> UPDATE: I'm excited to announce that White_Noise has been inspired to continue this universe! If you're curious to find out what happens next (and some of what happened during those eleven years), check out Fight for What You Have! (Work in Progress, Chapter 1 was just posted and immediately follows the end of this story.)  
>  
> 
> "Weep not for what you have lost, fight for what you have.  
> Weep not for what is dead, fight for what was born in you.  
> Weep not for the one who abandoned you, fight for who is with you.
> 
> Weep not for those who hate you, fight for those who want you.  
> Weep not for your past, fight for your present struggle.  
> Weep not for your suffering, fight for your happiness.
> 
> With things that are happening to us, we begin to learn that nothing is impossible to solve, just move forward."
> 
> -Attributed to Pope Francis but source unconfirmed

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Fight For What You Have](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7072750) by [White_Noise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/White_Noise/pseuds/White_Noise)




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